through the bars of a rhyme

Trent could not believe it. He had gone for all of his lessons for the week. While the first week of school involved a lot of sulking and idling that suited him well, the second week had a lot more up for academic approval. Perhaps it was going to be another rare time without a familial visit with a Howler, if he was even going to get any mail. He probably was, he thought. Demelza would send one, no matter the length. Still, the extremely short mail he had received not too long ago was surprisingly written by Dean. It sounded abrupt and troubled, but Trent did not dwell much on that matter. He had more things on his mind than worrying about mail, not that he did not need them, or even, not that worrying was an attitude that entered his vocabulary. Well, not until he learnt the consequential feeling of worry at the beginning of some sort of more-than-friends intimacy with Millie.

It was all very odd, the night in his dormitory. It was odd, but good, until Elliot walked in on them. The male Finnigan was still not talking to Trent, who had managed to avoid or slink away from situations where he would meet the former. Admittedly, Trent was not at his most sober state, throughout the experience and the ordeal of that day. It was, however, sufficient to let him know what had gone on. While Elliot would glare at him once every night before all turned in to sail to slumberland, Trent would lay with his eyes open, and attempt to re-conjure the experience with Millie, in his head, and as if she was still there in the bed, next to him. It had been difficult to see her, what with Elliot lurking around trying to ensure that his penetrating stare was poised for its attack on Trent, should he spy on the duo working at what he wished never to know or to see again.

It was annoying for the boy, having his chances to spend a private moment with Millie again taken away simply because he wanted to avoid a confrontation with Elliot. As the days wore on without a time alone with Millie, he had began to question the entire encounter. His mind swung from self-doubt to doubts about her. It was all he could think about -- her. The Professors would have scoffed at what this teenage boy filled his mind with, as usual. However, they were too probably more mindful of how strange it was to see him attending their classes instead. It was no use, though. His mind was not in classes. Trent had allowed Byron's talkative nature to penetrate whatever silence he was trying to fill, a silence that probably only Millie could fill. Girls at Hogwarts would not do either, he was just not interested.

The time that Trent had woken up to on the second Sunday of the new school year was the usual. He had sat up in bed, vaguely scanning the empty room. He was always the last to get up. The boys in the dormitory had teased that even if a battle raged at Hogwarts while Trent was asleep, he would still not be awake for it. It all boiled down to his own body, making the decision of wakefulness with far more power than even his mind. Trent, greeted by an empty dormitory, had gotten lazy of lazing around. As soon as he had slipped into a pair of black jeans, the boy threw on a polo tee, before heading out of the dormitory, not bothering with the mess of a hair sitting on top of his head.

It was a stroll through the Castle, and Trent had allowed it to be as slow as he could stand it. After all, it was a free day, since he was only going to worry about school-work at the very last minute of a deadline. The long walk compelled the boy to arrive at the Clock Tower, where he made his way up to where the gears and bells were at the tower. Once there, he walked the necessary steps to take him to the edge of the level, and eyed the Courtyard down, below him. Pleased with his position, Trent reached for the packet of cigarettes in his back-pocket, looked around the area, before lighting one up.

The book that the Divination professor had given Millie had been no help what so ever. She knew this yet she continued to study it intently, as if by staring at it long enough the pages would somehow reveal some sort of magical secret she didn’t know about. It was unlikely, she knew that, but it was worth a shot. Millie was really beginning to doubt whether it was any help at all though. The professor had said that she of all people should have known what the book was referring to. He’d said it would help her discover dreams and make sense of what she knew. If anything, he confused her more than the ruddy book did and despite her frustration, Millie still ploughed on, as if somehow reading and re-reading the thing would do her some good and would suddenly make her understand. So far, she’d had little luck.

That morning, she’d woken earlier than the rest of the girls snoring away in their beds. She’d laid awake, the covers curled around her legs, staring up at the scarlet canopy and tried to retread the steps she’d taken in her dream. The weather outside reflected the torrent in her head that morning. The sky had come over grey, the winds picked up and rain seemed to be near-constantly falling. There were only a few breaks between each burst and from where she was laid, her bed nearest to one of the windows that simply refused to shut, Millie could hear everything Mother Nature had to say about the world. Clearly she was not best pleased.

After listening to the weather howl against the castle, Millie finally began the arduous task of untangling her legs from the bed sheets. Eventually she tumbled out of bed and onto the floor. It was there she laid, her face pressed against the cool, draft-ridden floor boards, contemplating how she should start the day. After entertaining the idea of dragging herself back to bed, Millie grabbed the bedpost and hauled herself back up onto her shaky feet. She wasn’t feeling too fabulous, and hadn’t been for a while. Elliot had been muttering something about Trent all week and Millie did her best to block Elliot out from her head and let him get on with agonising about what happened. It didn’t matter in the whole scheme of things. It was as if what had happened had been a period in which anything was allowed to happen. Then after they’d rolled out of bed it was back to normal again - they were back to ignoring each other.

When she eventually made it to the bathroom and took another round of potions that the nurse had decided would prevent her oncoming bought of flu, Millie decided it was probably best to try and freshen herself up and not make it look as if she’d been doing a little too much of whatever had been in Spencer’s trunk the night before. She felt like hell, admittedly, but she wasn’t sure whether that was her own doing or because the flue was being persistent and the potions would do very little to prevent it now. Most likely it was a combination of both and Millie, as much as she loathed classes, was not looking forward to spending a week or two in the Hospital Wing trying to fight a fever or whatever else Elliot’s ridiculous cold from the other week had made her develop. Millie knew it would be another day studying that god forsaken book, regardless of whether she was going to plunge into near-death yet again. Oh how she loved the flu season.

After showering and making herself look less like a walking corpse, Millie pulled some clothes from her trunk and slowly got dressed. After that she loaded her pockets up with the necessities, grabbed that damn book and left the dormitory. A brisk walk down the stairs to avoid her brother who was chatting up offering to help Sarah with her homework and a quick scramble through the portrait hole took Millie out onto the grand staircase. From there she went to the only place that would really add to her frustration - with its incessant tick, tick, tick - the clock tower.

When Trent came up into the tower, Millie was already there tucked up among the cogs and gears. Her legs were drawn up to her chest and her arms were wrapped tightly around them, keeping her in place. Her eyes were fixed on the book that, in her frustration, she’d hurled across the tower. Sighing, Millie threw herself to her feet, her head narrowly missing the cog above her. She snatched the book from the floor and tucked it into her arms once more as she drew it open, her eyes seeking the page she’d been scanning before her anger had flared. She turned around, swivelling herself on the balls of her feet, and dropped herself down, unwittingly making it so she was facing Trent. Millie lifted her head absent-mindedly and her eyes widened upon setting her sights on the other Gryffindor.

Millie took an anxious step back but as luck would have it, the floorboard she’d chosen to stand on was loose and so it let out a loud squeal. Millie gasped and clamped her eyes shut. She brought the book up in front of her face, her hands spread over both covers, and bit her lip, unconsciously playing that age old game....‘if I can’t see you then you can’t see me.’

Why the failure to notice someone else, even the very girl in his thoughts, Trent did not know. It was perhaps, as most have said, he had smoked himself into oblivion. He was a hollow shell, deprived of the necessary parts of the conventional human. Perhaps that was what made him such an unpleasant result of the consummation of Dean Thomas and Demelza Robins, he did not seem to take after either of them. It was as if they had come together to produce a thing without a spark. It was only with Millie, recently, that Trent seemed to have found some spark. Some kind of ignition was always present in him when she was around, and it was not because she coincidentally had pyromaniac tendencies. Then again, it was possible that she had been responsible for lighting up the intangible spark within him. He had no way of knowing that.

Trent had merely took one drag of his cigarette, before a loud inanimate squeal punctured what he thought was silence, albeit the moving cogs and gears around him. These very mechanics decided time. It was pathetic, really. To see how people had to be subjected to such mere mechanics, going about letting these decide what to do during whatever time of the day. Then again, he though, people always let the slightest things dictate their lives, as if they were just begging for something, anything, to take control of themselves, because they had no ability to do it on their own. Trent was on that thought, when the call of a squeal of floorboards made him swerve, only to find a girl near him, with a book hiding her face. Even with the book, he knew who she was. He could smell her. Now that he realised she was there, he could really smell her, even at the distance she was standing at. It was strange. Was he getting more delusional now?

Trent grinned. Sure, it seemed as if he and Millie had ignored each other ever since they allowed each other to ... have each other. Still, he was glad to see her, even if ... "I can't see you, Mophead. Really, where're you?" Trent took another drag of the cigarette, waiting for her to put away that silly book. Absent-mindedly, he ruffled his hair into a mess. He had not expected to Millie here. Then again, it was one of the places he had liked to come, and so did she.

There was one major flaw with the blonde’s favourite childhood game. It didn’t matter whether or not she was poking her gaze through the gaps in her fingers, straining to see the world around her. Either way, whether she could see her adversary or not, she was always found. Millie suspected Elliot used to cheat. Trent too, Trent always cheated and today wasn’t meant to be an exception. Instead he humoured her, feigning ignorance to her position. It was rather obvious it was Millie. From her ever so slightly turned in feet to her mane of spun-gold hair, she oozed the quirkiness even without the wicked grin that could usually be seen on her face. Millie would have been surprised if Trent hadn’t known it to be her. He’d known her too long to make that kind of mistake though and that went both ways. Never could she mistake someone else to be Trent or Trent to be someone else. She just knew him too well, inside out.

Slowly, Millie brought her book down away from her face. Her eyes were alight with mirth and her grin was shining with full force, unbreakable on her face. She brought her book down fully and snapped it shut before bringing it to her chest. She ducked her head a little and scuffed her tennis shoe across the worn floorboards before lifting her gaze up to Trent. Millie watched the smouldering mix of colours as they burned bit by bit down the length of the cigarette, leaving behind an unstable line of ash that still seemed to glow, even if it was only a little bit. Millie bit her lip a little but soon released it upon deciding to take a few steps forward towards Trent. She lifted her hand, as if to reach out for him, but suddenly thought better of it and brought her arm back around her book.

“Hi,” She murmured, her smile not faltering for a second. Her mind was whirling though and not nearly as relaxed as she outwardly appeared. She didn’t know where she and Trent were in their relationship anymore. They were hardly just friends but they weren’t anything like Elliot wanted him and Sarah to be. Millie daren’t think it let alone say it. The ‘L-word’ had been tossed around a little but that seemed to mean nothing coming from Trent just as it meant nothing coming from the mouths of her parents. ‘I love you’ -- what a cruel, heart-wrenching group of words. I love you. How could someone dare do that? How could anyone extend themselves so willingly and allow themselves to love? Surely they knew how much it would hurt? They must have done; and if so, why take that risk? Was it really worth it?

Yes, her subconscious reminded her, it was and still is.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around for a while. It feels like ages, doesn’t it? Well, uh, for me it does. Elliot’s been difficult but I don’t think you want to talk about him...um.” Millie looked down at her feet again before hesitantly lifting her gaze back to Trent’s. “I miss you.”

Simple enough and most assuredly earnest enough; it was as close as she was ever going to get to expressing her love for him. She missed him. That was close enough. He made things a little bit more bearable. He anesthetised what the vices did not. What pain still lingered, he dulled until the period of happiness that quenched that agony ended and she was plunged back into life again, the haze having shed from where it had clung to her body. Life was a little too unbearable at times. Being at home, making one of those stifling, insufferable moments. Here, at Hogwarts, it was loneliness, sheer loneliness that made her so disorientated by life. She couldn’t hack it. It was all too much. But for those few and far between moments now, Trent parted the storm clouds and let the sunshine in. She needed him in all of his entirety, not just for her own selfish needs. She needed him. Him and only him. And despite that need, she just stood there.

The cogs and the gears made a rhythmic, though predictable, symphony together. T-t-t-t-t-...ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-.... At least, it seemed, only those few letters could be used to describe the ineffable sound made by the mechanics of the Clock Tower. Although one could jolly well allow them to fade into the oblivion of ambient sound, someone who bothered to give a listen to them could well be hypnotised by the persistent bars of the rhyme that the cogs and the gears made. While elsewhere on the school grounds, the human noises would have robbed the music of the insignificant, the music was elevated here, high up in the Tower. Trent could almost feel the cogs in his mind clicking along with the huge ones over his head. He liked the notice that he had made of the little sound around him, as if they were a projection of his feelings, and he wanted to allow the little and slighted some air time. He expected that he was doing them a favour, paying them some attention, as if someone would return it to him.

Someone had told Trent that life was made up of circles. But if everything came back to you in full circle, why did he feel stuck at just one point of a triangle, not able to make his way to any of the other two points, and not able to see what was waiting for him there either. He wanted out, out of whatever that was oppressing him, especially that in his head. He was getting tired of it, and he was still too young to feel tired of anything about life. What was wrong with him? He wished he had somewhere certain to blame. If not, somewhere certain to lay his head at to rest. Perhaps, the place was going to be where he would finally be laid to rest, after he manages to kill himself with whatever he could. The boy entertained morbid thoughts in his head. He was certain that it was the fault of the oppression in his head, the one that felt lifted only when he looked into the bright-blue swirl of the girl who was now standing in front of him.

Well, it was not that the eyes were always available. Even now, it was shielded by the book that Millie held in front of her face. When she lowered it, the movement itself brought excitement to Trent, as if he did not already knew more parts of her body than her clothes allowed others to see. The memory of Millie had replayed in his mind, over and over again; during meals at the Great Hall, in classes, flitting around the corners of Hogwarts that he prowled, and definitely before, during, and after sleep times. Still, the essence of the girl paled in his conjuration of her in his memory. Trent sniffed the air, not realising how his action of sniffing had resembled that of a canine. Despite the stronger smell of his cigarette smoke, his nose was keen for Millie.

Trent smiled when Millie brought the book down, and stepped closer towards him. He had to quell his impulses to embrace her, although it was merely his alert self-consciousness. After all, before the whole romantic saga had began, intimacy was not even questioned. The boy reached a hand out, as if wanting to touch Millie, but he let it run away, reaching up to ruffle his hair instead, leaving it in a messier state than it already was. Millie spoke, and Trent merely nodded. He watched her lips move, and he tried to remember how they tasted like. It excited him, but he was not confident about making the move. What were they? They have not talked for almost a week, that did not make them anything like a couple. Besides, if he was going to be one with her, he had to give up on all the others. What others? He was kidding himself, delaying full acceptance of Millie as someone more. Trent had spent almost none of his brain cells on another. Elliot would have been happy to know that, if they were speaking. Even if they were, Trent would never admit that. It sounded lame in his head, as with all his other feelings for Millie.

Trent returned his eyes to Millie's, at her last three words. For a few moments, he stared at her with longing, and then he looked away to take a drag of his cigarette. "Well, how've you been? It's been quiet around in Hogwarts, hasn't it?" He continued with his cigarette. And then, because he could not stand how he had brushed Millie's words aside. He looked intently at her again, before admitting. "I miss you, too." And then, he tossed the cigarette through the air, and took a necessary steps to close the gap between Millie and him. Trent brought a hand up to cup the girl's left cheek. He let out a frustrated sound, as if he was frustrated to have been kept away from her for too long. And then Trent began to rub his thumb against the smooth skin of Millie's cheek. "Where have you been? What have you done?" It was as if he was suddenly jealous about all the other things and people who had Millie's attention, while he had to stand back and suffer her absence.

It had never been complicated. Things had always been so simple. There had never been any room for complications. Neither one had really acted on what they’d quelled within them. None of their actions made the complications manifest. It was only after the night she’d spent at Trent’s house that things had changed. Her mind echoed the quote she’d made as they’d flown back to the odds they’d been at in the bathroom once more. Now they were at odds again but it wasn’t because they were irritated with each other. Rather, they just didn’t know what to do with each other - and (let’s not forget) Elliot was making it increasingly difficult for Millie to breathe let alone speak to Trent. They’d had the same discussion every day and it ended the same way every time. Elliot would have rather had her sleeping with Slytherins than with Trent and that wasn’t the first time her brother’s logic was flawed. Things had changed though and it baffled Millie. She just didn’t understand it.

Emil Ludwig was wrong. Also, there was no such thing as a love story, just the grim realities of life. Everyone sought the same thing. In the end, all humans want is to be loved and accepted. There was something different about them though. Essentially it was the same but it was just so warped in its manifestation. Emil Ludwig had said a kiss. What they had experienced instead was anger, frustration and a handful of runes. Then something else entirely. It made Millie’s mind ache, even more than the book did, and she knew it gave Elliot the same migraines as he tried to wrap his head around them. Trent didn’t make sense. Millie didn’t make sense. Put those nonsensical people together and you have a mess, in short. It was a mess, a torrent of overbearing emotions, rethought actions and words unsaid. No wonder it had come to this.

Millie dropped her gaze down to her feet and she scuffed her battered old tennis shoe against the floorboards, unsure if she’d done that already or not. She licked her lips absent-mindedly and lifted her head again before swaying gently in time with the clunk of the gears above them. The final surrender - Emil Ludwig had spoke about that. He may well have been wrong, though now for the life of her Millie couldn’t figure out why, but she wanted to know what that final surrender was. What did it mean? She thought she had an inkling, however small it was, but she still didn’t know the meaning of it. Her useless streams of philosophy rarely contained anything she could comprehend. She needed him though, she understood that bit. She needed him like the plants needed sunshine and rain to grow; she needed him like a life source.

Shrugging her shoulders, Millie grinned sheepishly at Trent. “Oh I’ve been around...” She said slowly, a smirk morphing from her grin. “They took the g-powder. No idea what I’m supposed to do without it apart from comb my robes for whatever is left. It’s difficult and beyond frustrating.” Millie sighed before shrugging her shoulders. “I suppose I’ll just have to get good at potions and give the Slytherins a good thumping the old fashioned way with spiked Pumpkin juice and antler-inducing hexes.” Millie shrugged her shoulders again and smiled contently before drumming a pattern against the hard back of the book in her arms.

It was when she felt Trent’s hand on her cheek that Millie emerged from the daze she allowed herself to fall into. She closed her eyes and leaned into his palm, savouring the feeling of his hand against her skin before he retracted it. Accompanied with his touch were mirrored words. He missed her too. Part of Millie wanted to launch herself into his arms at that but she didn’t quite know how that all worked anymore. She didn’t know anything pertaining to their relationship anymore. It had just gotten weird.

“What have I done?” Millie raised an eyebrow at him and laughed. “Nothing! Honest! No, seriously. Ell has had me under his thumb and when he’s clinging to that weird girl trying to get her to love him, I escape and try to make some sense out of this,” Millie held up her book. “Professor Lola gave it to me. I’ve sort of just been working on this, trying to figure it out. I’ve been neglecting the Slytherins haven’t I?” Millie feigned horror before grinning again. She soon sobered though and she shuffled her feet awkwardly as she tried to draw together enough courage to ask Trent what she’d been wondering for the last week. “W-what are we, Trent? I mean, like...we’re not...we’re not just friends anymore are we because friends don’t...they don’t do that and I would very much like to do that again. I mean...that is to say...I would like to...I...oh sweet merciful Merlin.” Millie groaned loudly and pulled the book up over her face again to hide her inflamed cheeks. Never one with words, she’d stuck her foot in it again.

It could have been a late awakening. People talk about awakenings that happened once the inevitable phenomenon of puberty begins to work its mysteries through a body. Some talked about it as if the process would be a kind of enlightenment, where you grow up to become who you were meant to be -- a man, a woman ... but Trent felt none of it. Besides, there was nothing special about being a man, not that he qualified to be one, at just the age of Fifteen. He merely had an operating reproductive system, and that was it; and a very young one at that, albeit the many trips of pleasures it had already taken with muggle girls who did not matter. So there was nothing special about being a man, in Trent's opinion. After all, that made you part of the collective of Man, of men. What could possibly be enlightening about being a part of a collective, of being nothing but a collective, not even possessing an identification that is personal? It was easy, for Trent, to face the part of puberty where the body experienced a kind of pleasure that even the ultimate joy of constructing a Lego car and operating it through a battery-remote could not compete. What was difficult, and Trent only found out as of late, was how to deal with the heart's puberty, when the heart decided it was ready to be ruptured by who it believed to be the most rupture-worthy girl of all time.

Trent's heart had ruptured, and his mind could not comprehend it, as if the two were recently divorced. Before, his desires and the thoughts about it aligned. Now, he was left perpetually gazing at the subject of his desire, even when she was not around, and wondering how he thought about the whole thing. Trent gazed at Millie, smiling a little in response to her, watching her talk, and feeling amused although he really was used to what was usually up to. If it were all just platonic, he would have shrugged at her response complacently. But it wasn't. He looked at her as if he thought she was the cutest thing on earth. As much as being the cutest thing might not sound flattering, it was. Trent barely stared at people or things in the manner that he was gazing at Millie. And then Millie continued to talk, speaking of something Trent actually had to comment on.

"It's Sarah, isn't it? I've been guessing, but he's so bloody obvious with it, I don't think it's called guessing anymore. Doesn't Sarah have a ... guy, or something?" Trent shrugged. It did not really matter, but sometimes gossip filled conversations. Trent merely eyed the book, before returning his eyes to the girl. He was not much of a reader. If only classes involved merely talking rather than having to read. Reading made him sleep. Trent nodded. "Not much going on at the Slytherin front, yes. None that I've heard of recently. I was hoping you, or Roxi, were up to something. I guess we've all been neglecting the Slytherins. Poor things. I bet they're wondering, craving even, our love and our attention. You should probably give it to them. Poor children." He clucked his tongue, before he grinned at Millie.

Trent thought that he had effectively steered conversation away from being awkward, at least broaching a common subject between the both of them. But Millie ruptured it, not that he would complain against that. It was a much needed question. The longer it took for them to solve this big question, the longer it might have to be for him to not see Millie as often as he would like, which probably meant everyday, seeing as to how he did see her around still, in passing -- in classes, in the Great Hall, and of course, in the Common Room. What more did he want? Millie in his bed again? Her smell, above the smell of his cigarette and spliffs? That was probably one of it. Trent tried to stifle a laugh when Millie mentioned those words that he thought too, but did not have the courage to spill, only because she blushed and proceeded to hide herself not very effectively behind her book. But of course, the stifling that Trent attempted failed. He laughed. Out loud. And then he bit his lower lip to stop it.

"Haven't you been doing that?" He asked now, cautiously. Part of him tried to make it sound like teasing, while the other part was really testing. Trent wanted to see if she had gone around, without him, willing that she did not, of course. It was a jealous part acting up inside of him. "I mean, I've been having at it ..." He paused, and grinned. "... with my homework." Trent chuckled at the lame joke he just cracked. "They're not very comfortable ..." And then he realised how that might have came out, him doing his homework, indecently. "Not that I've been trysting my homework ..." No, that would be lame, and geeky. "I've just been ... trying to look like I'm even doing it, for the first time." And then he said, wistfully. "Perhaps I wouldn't fail the OWLs, after all." And then Trent remembered the question at hand. He scratched the back of his neck, not that it needed some scratching. He just wanted to stall for time.

"I ... don't know." He shrugged. "We're friends, aren't we? I mean, we are, always will be. It'd be weird if we .. are not." He frowned in confusion. And then, as if it would help, "you're a great friend ... ?" Trent did not know if he dared to want Millie as more. "I ... well, Elliot would murder me if I did anything wrong. I'm not sure ..." He paused. "... I always make mistakes. I'm not sure if I'll do anything wrong, with you." Trent tucked both of his hands in his pockets. "If I do something wrong, I'll feel bad about it, of course. But I might not even get to live in regret, you know. Elliot will want me dead. He could kill me, and I'd appreciate it, speed up the process of living, you know." How did that come out? "I just don't want to live forever knowing how I was such a let down to too many people, and to people who mattered. My parents are foreshadows ..." But he could not resist Millie physically either. How could he live as a friend, when his mind would torture him with possibilities with her? After all, he needed that bodily pleasure too. That was the joy of holidays away from Hogwarts. Now, though, he really just wanted to be able to even caress the sides of Millie's face. Even that, perhaps, was weird as friends. Friends could hug, but he was sure being that would not let him enjoy the taste of Millie's tongue. Trent wanted to stop thinking, stop talking, and do so. He eyed her, as if he wanted to lunge forward for it. But he bit his lower lip, and contemplated.

"Can I ... kiss you?" And there it was, he could not hold that back. At least, he thought, he was asking ... not that asking made a difference to what the both of them were to each other.

It was almost cruel the way Elliot prevented Millie and Trent from seeing each other yet continued to chase his own love. Hypocritical, Elliot was at best, but that really was the icing on the cake. The only issue was that Elliot didn’t try particularly hard to do so, either. It was almost as if they were doing it themselves and allowed him to take the credit for it. Millie, admittedly, hadn’t put a lot of effort into her attempts to see Trent. She’d said very little to Elliot about that and so in return, Elliot had remained content with his schoolwork and ‘extracurricular activities’. Millie knew Sarah; not as well as Elliot would have liked but the fact that Millie knew her was a start. Millie had even spoken to Sarah once or twice in the past week, only to find that the girl was as smitten with the idea of Elliot as he was with her. Millie hadn’t the heart to tell Elliot that it was all for the homework aid though.

It would have been funny if her brother’s heart wasn’t in it as much as it was. Perhaps he didn’t love her yet but he was close to it; blinded by her beauty and her wit, he was a fool if he wasn’t. There was one problem though - the big burly git that Sarah was currently with. Well, Sarah and every other girl in Gryffindor house. Millie herself had the privilege to say “been there, done that” with reference to Graham. He wasn’t the best bed partner she’d ever had but he certainly wasn’t the worst. Having said that, Spencer after a bottle of Vodka and a varying amount of shots was better than him and that really didn’t say a lot for his performance. However, Millie had heard great things about Sarah. She’d fed all sorts of things through to Elliot about what she could do with her tongue and her double joined fingers or whatever it was she had. Elliot had been difficult, as ever, refusing to believe she was as much of a harlot as Graham was. Sarah was an angel, you see. She would never do anything like that!

“Mmm,” Millie laughed softly. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Bless him; Ell couldn’t have picked anyone worse. You know Graham don’t you? He’s about this big,” Millie threw her arm up high above her head and jumped, struggling to measure just how tall the burly Beater actually was. “and looks like he could crush a fourth year and a dozen firsties with his muscles.” Millie shuddered. “I’d hate to be in Ell’s position when he sleeps with her and Graham finds out. Poor sod. He’ll spend six months in the Hospital Wing.” Millie snickered and grinned at the mention of the Slytherins. “I’ll come up with something - Scout’s honour! I’ll go and give them hugs and kisses, they won’t know what’s hit them!”

Millie felt her cheeks blaze with heat at Trent’s laugh and she immediately dropped her eyes to her feet, desperate to avoid the humiliation she was expecting from his laugh. She knew better, especially concerning him, but from the laugh she was expecting him to throw her words back in her face and think her stupid for even suggesting they be something more than just friends. She was expecting the rejection. She could see it in her head as a possible scenario. She knew though, deep down, that it was not in Trent to be cruel like that - especially not towards her - but Millie’s insecurities got the better of her in those moments and she closed her eyes, wishing the Giant Squid would fly through the window and gobble her up so she wouldn’t have to hear his words.

In a manner of speaking, he did throw the words back in her face but it was a joke, a poor one, admittedly, but not a cruel one. Millie lifted her head and smiled weakly, a small laugh passing her own lips though not by her own accord. It was merely a subconscious reassurance...for the pair of them. “Trysts with your homework would mark you as a very desperate man, Trent.” Millie replied easily, a smile on her lips. “I’ve been neglecting my homework. Ell seems quite happy doing it for me but then with his own, mine and Sarah’s to do, he has his arms full. Ah well. Silly sod, eh?” Millie laughed weakly again and they moved from the joke to the real question, and Trent’s answer.

She would have been a liar if she had claimed Trent’s words didn’t burn. A handful of words in particular struck a chord with her, one that froze her blood in her veins. Millie froze and her grip fell from around the book, allowing it to fall to the floor between them. The loud smack of the hardback book hitting the dusty floorboards was the sound that went with the slap in the face the words had gave her. The process of living....sped up. The words resounded in Millie’s mind and that overwhelming abyss of darkness was thrust forward, taking her sight away from the scene at hand for a few moments. She sucked in a vein of breath and clamped her eyes shut before abruptly reopening them. Mentally, she pushed towards the light that shone and she was once again swathed in reality.

“N-no!” Her strangled exclamation fell into the air as she dived forward, her hands coming to grip the collar of Trent’s shirt. She shook him, or at least tried considering the difference in proportions between them, and attempted, in vain, to keep the tears at bay. “Don’t you dare say that! No! I don’t...I can’t...just...don’t say anything at all if those are your words! You can’t...I can’t...” Millie exhaled shakily and let her eyes slide shut for a few seconds as she tried to get her breathing in order. “You will not turn my brother into a murderer just to escape your own reality, Trent! You can’t want that! You can’t want any of it! Why suffer through this far if all you want is the quick way out? I can’t lose you! I don’t care if you’re intent on dying by my brother’s hand at your mistake! No! I’d rather be selfish. I need to keep you. I need you. I don’t want you to say that...ever again. Anything like that....no. No, I can’t hear it.”

Millie looked up at Trent with watery eyes. She blinked a few times, allowing the tears to slide down her cheeks. “Please.” She whispered, desperate to feel his lips against hers as a reminder that he was there. He was there, at that moment and until the time was right, he wasn’t going anywhere. Ever, if Millie could help it.

Perhaps it was a syndrome suffered from being an only child; the attention one could possibly garner by stirring lava out of a volcano, by making a mountain out of a molehill. As soon as he noticed an avenue of pain, Trent just had to let it more than be. He had to reach for it, bring the scorching bars to his chest, and let it burn him, again and again. If the pain was not properly magnified in that manner, perhaps look for another vulnerable body part, and attempt to burn it with the bar too. His self-indulgence could possibly have attributed to their pain; at least, his own pain. On the other hand, it could just be that Trent was really his mother's son. He took after that part of her that never believed in the best for herself. This was a more ambivalent possibility. Demelza was known to try to encounter the best of options for her, and yet, she never chose it or it always turned out to be exactly the opposite of her expectations. After all, she had married Dean Thomas, a man who was reasonably talented and respected, but whose heart was neither with her, nor in their marriage. In other words, she settled for less, with regards to what was best for herself. Perhaps, then, Trent had so much hesitation in acting on his feelings for Millie, for the reason that he could not bring himself to accept the best. He could deal with the muggle girls, but not her.

Talking about Elliot and Sarah offered a momentary distraction. Trent liked the seeming normality of a conversation about them. He nodded when Millie mentioned Graham, chuckling even at her attempt to demonstrate the height of the other boy. Thanks to a frame made like Dean, Trent was very tall for his age. While many knew Graham to be impossibly tall and well-built, Trent was known among the few tall ones, lesser than Graham, but taller than the average crowd. This did not work well for Trent. He was almost always noticed for any mischief in classes and around Hogwarts. He would have traded some height for some sanity ... or not. Trent squeezed his eyes for a second, wincing a little from his imagination of Elliot in the Hospital Wing after a beating from Graham. "Not a pretty sight," he nodded, as if agreeing to an image that the girl had put in his head. "He'll get it worse than me, hah!" And then he stopped himself, noticing how he had let a gloat slip out of him, and smiled sheepishly at Millie. "I'm trying to decide if it'll all be worth it, y'know, to get a bashing for sleeping with Sarah. After all, Sarah is ..." He did not complete his sentence. Rather, Trent licked his lips cheekily, before he chuckled. He had heard stories about the girl. But like almost every girl at Hogwarts, he had merely enjoyed the stories, not really desiring to experience the stories first-hand.

Trent was about to join in, in Millie's excitement of whatever impulsive plans she was going to effect on the Slytherins, when he felt less enthusiastic at her ideas. It was as if he had already raised his fist in mid-air, but lost the motivation to shout a cheer, or to even keep that fist raised. She was going to give them hugs and kisses. She. Hugs and kisses. Trent merely stared at her, wondering how he could react to it. Was he in any place to even show jealousy at a statement of jest? Since when did he take things so seriously? He knew the answers, of course. But he pretended, even to himself, that he did not. Instead, he had made that weak attempt of a joke, "I've always been a desperate man ... desperate for kicks." He nodded, as if that action was needed to validate his statement. Soon enough, Trent had gone on a rambling spree. He certainly did not expect the reaction that he got from that, though. He soon found himself grabbed and shaken, and staring into the imploring eyes of the girl, with the tears in them, enough to make him want to hold her until he could ensure that they were gone. Of course, Trent was the selfish one. He wanted out of life because he could not face it without getting what he wanted or needed. And yet, the attention-seeking part of him pushed those things away from him, as if he needed someone to thrust what he wanted into his bosom instead.

While he let her grab at his collar, Trent let his hands reach for the girl. After all, it was the very direction that they wanted to head to. The direction of Millie, that was what his being had craved. His hands, now, acted like prosthetic limbs, helping him on what he failed to help himself with. A hand circled around Millie's waist, bringing her close enough so that he could feel her against him, to make sure that she was really there for him, open for him. His other hand reached to cup the girl's chin, before it moved higher to rub gently over the bottom of the left eye, then the right. Trent leaned his head forward, so that he could allow his nose to touch hers, also pointing his being towards her direction, in that act. At the touch of that point to hers, Trent let his nose rub against hers, slowly and tenderly. And then he kissed her left cheek. And then, still not satisfied, he brought his lips lower to meet hers. At that, he kissed her, fulfilling his question and her consent. At the break of the kiss, Trent merely let his lips slide to the side of Millie's lips, lingering rather than withdrawing.

"I'm sorry," he muttered against the skin he wanted to taste. In a way, he was asking for a reaction that Millie had given. It was as if he needed it to feel wanted, to feel validated. And yet, he did love her, despite that want for himself. One can never decide, or even throw out a judgement on his act, whether it was selfish. After all, everyone living was selfish to Trent. He had never believed or seen people who were not. That was also why he loved Harry Potter and the story of the Wizard's life. There were elements of selfless-ness, what with his parents and the sacrifices. He was told of it by Dean. However, Trent could not relate that to his parents. He felt distant and certainly sure that he had no confidence of putting his life with them. There were no reasons to debunk his beliefs. No one had given him a reason to.

Mortality was pressing, smothering and so stifling that it plagued both consciousness and unconsciousness. The selfish of the world were always more concerned with their own mortality than that of another. Seers tended to not be included in that group of people. Tormented with the life and death of others, they simply had no time to be concerned with their own rapidly approaching demise. In Millie’s sense it was her fear of losing Trent that froze her so. Grasping him as she did, shaking him as she did...it reminded Millie that Trent was real and that he wasn’t a figment of her imagination, there to torment her. She didn’t know what she would do if he disappeared from her life. She dare not entertain the idea.

But he was real, he was so very, very real, and as Millie brought her hand up to his cheek, she was reminded of that. The warmth flooded into her cool palm and she closed her eyes for a few seconds as her mind registered that that heat meant there was a life source. His voice, the steady rise and fall of his chest and that heartbeat she could feel against her fingers that had slipped to his neck...it all meant he was alive, there before her. It was all so fleeting though. If the dreams weren’t tormenting enough, knowing that he was real and so very precarious in life hurt her all the more. She was foolish to dwell on dreams as she did. She was forgetting to live her own life as she worried about his. What Millie was finding though, was that life was just as unpleasant as the idea of death. No one seemed to love anymore; they all preferred another L-word: loathing.

A strangled sob ripped from her throat as Trent drew her close to him. Her hand slipped from his cheek and fell pathetically to his forearm. She seemed to do little more than cry over him now. When did it all change? When did things start getting complicated? When did she begin agonising over his mortality and when did she stop worrying about hers? She loved him desperately, that much was clear, even to herself. He made things easier but at the same time he made it all the more harder. And when he talked the way he did....so flippantly about his death...she wanted to strangle him herself and put him out of his god forsaken misery. She didn’t know if he realised just how much it hurt her to hear him say those words over and over. It was as if he truly meant it, as if there was nothing worth staying for.

The salty tears ran freely down her cheeks, her thoughts stimulating her tear ducts to the point where her eyes could no longer keep the tears at bay. Instinctively, she leaned into the touch of his lips against her skin. Her eyes were like the mouths of waterfalls, ever flowing with the water that had been salted by her anguish. Millie’s hands slipped back up to Trent’s neck and she slipped her fingers around it, feeling for that gentle thump of his pulse point. Her eyes slowly reopened when Trent’s lips slid away and she tipped her head forward, bringing it down on his shoulder. Millie’s fingers absent mindedly began to stroke the back of his neck as she tried to drag control back over her shuddering breathing.

“I...” The words died in Millie’s throat before they even fully formed in her mind and the hand that had fallen to his arm when she’d brought her head down on his shoulder tightened its grip. Lifting her head from his shoulder, Millie’s eyes searched Trent’s face. “I...I..I love you, Trent.”